At least 12 people were killed yesterday as US troops battled insurgents who fired a salvo of mortars into Iraq's government compound, orchestrated two failed car bombings and assassinated a security official.
Militants loyal to alleged al-Qaeda operative and Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, claimed attacks on the heavily-fortified Green Zone housing the government and the US embassy and on the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
The battles raged hours after US-led troops across the country commemorated the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, blamed on al-Qaeda, which led to the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and 41 wounded during intense fighting around Haifa Street, considered a bastion of Saddam Hussein loyalists, according to doctors at two local hospitals.
Mazen al-Tomaisi, a Palestinian working for Saudi and al-Arabiya television, died and two photographers were wounded in a US helicopter attack during the clashes, media sources said.
The fighting erupted after a suspected car bomb exploded two hours before dawn in Haifa Street where insurgents and US troops clash regularly.
Heavy machine-gun and assault rifle fire reverberated across the street for three hours and a tank was mobilized to support US troops.
As the sun rose at 6:30am, a car bomb struck the tank, wounding four people, a military spokeswoman said.
A pair of US helicopters then swooped down over the neighborhood and fired missiles into the mob, scattering at least five corpses across the ground.
The US military said the tank was destroyed from the air "to prevent looting and harm to the Iraqi people."
Simultaneously, two drivers were shot dead while trying to ram cars rigged with explosives into the high-security Green Zone and the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, Iraqi and US sources said.
Another man was killed trying to smash his car through the compound of the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, the US military said.
An Iraqi police colonel also died in a car bombing on his way to work, a ministry spokesman said.
Gunmen attacked security forces guarding the Dibis and Kirkuk oilfields in two separate attacks yesterday, injuring five officers, a security official said.
He said the assailants fled the scene in the two attacks. No other details were available.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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